By Alex Novak

The 2007 version of Art Chicago put this venerable show back on firm footing. After a messy near-bankruptcy last year under former manager Thomas Blackman and a last-minute save by the current owner, the show has gained additional credibility this year from its committed and deep-pocketed new owner, Chris Kennedy (yes, of those Kennedy's) and Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc.

On the Saturday of the fair, Kennedy announced several major art show deals, proving just how driven he was to be top dog in the art market. He said that Merchandise Mart Properties had formed a "strategic partnership" with the New York Armory Show and Volta, a satellite show at Art Basel (more in a separate article). Both staffs would remain in place at each show, but clearly there would be synergies among the fairs. The owner of Merchandise Mart Properties is also expected by many sources to take over the rental of the piers, a major venue for art shows, for the City of New York.

Here in the Windy City the enlarged and sold-out Art Chicago 2007 brought in 132 top contemporary art dealers from around the world (twice as many applicants were turned away as were accepted), many showing art photography and video here. That was about double the exhibitors and a clear up-tick in quality. The total audience numbers for the five shows involved in ARTropolis, including Art Chicago, broke just a hair over 42,000 attendees. While the audience was still somewhat limited to the Midwest, the change in the show and in the city of Chicago's attitude towards it was astounding. The concept of ARTropolis--a citywide event that celebrated the arts with Art Chicago as the crown jewel--came off spectacularly. And the VIP program here clearly outshown any previous such approach at other fairs. VIPs could not only get into all the events and shows as a part of ARTropolis, but could even get free meals, limo service and tickets to special shows and programs. As a harbinger to future audience expansion, Lufthansa sponsored a lounge to hype their private jet service for VIP collectors.

This was a more serious fair and program, especially compared to the raw hedonism of Art Basel Miami. While Chicago might not draw quite as big and boisterous a crowd as Miami, its more approachable art and its programs that are more focused on the art itself rather than just celebrity definitely do have their place.

The dealers who did make the show were many top guns, who had either not been at the show in years or had never been there before. Montreal's Landau Fine Arts (which reportedly had over $200 million in art on the walls here), London's Annely Juda Fine Art, Chicago's Rhona Hoffman Gallery, and New York's P.P.O.W. and Shainman Galleries were just a few of the big art gallery names exhibiting here.

The show management put the spotlight on photography by creating a series of special AIPAD Project walls, each spotlighting a top contemporary artist represented by one or more of the AIPAD galleries exhibiting here. The 11 artists and their galleries included: Contemporary Works/Vintage Works, Ltd. showing Arthur Tress; Charles Cowles Gallery and Robert Koch Gallery, Edward Burtynsky; Stephen Daiter Gallery, Charles Fréger; Catherine Edelman Gallery, Joel-Peter Witkin; Peter Fetterman Galley, Sebastiao Salgado; HackelBury Fine Art Limited, Malick Sidibé; Paul Kopeikin Gallery, David Maisel; Robert Mann Gallery, Jeff Brouws; Laurence Miller Gallery, DoDo Jin Ming; Yossi Milo Gallery, Loretta Lux; and Weinstein Gallery, Alec Soth.

While some of the photographs up on the walls were expected iconic images, there were also some interesting surprises from this group of fine photographers, for instance, Arthur Tress' complex color work documenting his installation art at an abandoned hospital on New York City's Welfare Island.

Xiliary Skylar Twil, director of Los Angeles-based Jonathan Novak (honest, no relationship to the writer of this article) Contemporary Art was direct in her observations: "I believe that this was either our 12th or 13th year exhibiting at Art Chicago. The only year we did not exhibit was last year, as we lacked confidence in what the fair had become. We were delighted to exhibit again this year. Not only is Chicago a great art city, with tremendous collectors, museums and dealers, but Art Chicago has a venerable history that is part of our professional experience. A critical factor that made this year's fair so positive is Chris Kennedy and his staff; each provided a high level of detailed involvement with the exhibitors. Each of our concerns, whether they arose before, during or after the fair, was dealt with quickly and with a smile. This makes us want to return next year to exhibit again. (In fact we have already put in our application for 2008)."

Twil continued, "We sold quite well, including works of Sam Francis (whose estate we represent), Frankenthaler, Cornell and Dine. We are working on quite a few deals as a result of the fair and expect to sell works by Goings, Cottingham, Hockney and Thiebaud, as well. Overall, the quality of the fair was high. I heard of some extraordinary sales, and I know of many dealers who were very pleased. I certainly was."

Twil noted the added value of the special program: "The fashion show that was produced one evening after the fair was extraordinary--beautiful fashions, run well and packed. Music, free gifts: what a great idea. I also saw some great apartments with incredible art collections and spectacular views of Chicago. We love this city and always feel at home there."

AIPAD member Larry Miller of New York's Laurence Miller Gallery told me, "We found Art Chicago to be a very well-run fair, although the number of collectors present needs to be improved. We hope that in the future they will be able to encourage collecting groups led by museum curators from throughout the Midwest to attend. Overall the quality of exhibits was very high, although nothing too radical or amazing comes to mind...the exhibitors in general made their respective stands look very well designed, without much of the chaos found at other photo fairs and contemporary art fairs.

"Our sales were balanced between contemporary and modern works, and included two large DoDo Jin Ming seascapes, a Walker Evans' "Main Street, Saratoga Springs,1931," a Helen Levitt dye-transfer, and a large Toshio Shibata landscape. We remain in conversation with several collectors that we spoke with at Art Chicago and are hopeful that more sales are to come."

Another AIPAD dealer, Stephen Daiter of Chicago's Stephen Daiter Gallery, told me that he was very active during and after the show. During Art Chicago, he sold ten Yasuhiro Ishimoto color prints, a Ray Metzker composite, a vintage Harry Callahan of his wife Eleanor, two Andre Kertesz prints, a vintage Edouard Boubat self portrait with Lella and "two or three" Ben Guest color prints. Two Paul D'Amato color prints of the Barrio were sold as a direct result of contacts made at the show.

Associate Paul Berlanga of Stephen Daiter Gallery added, "This year Art Chicago gave evidence for renewed optimism as the Mart Properties team made good on its promise of regeneration. Aside from a snafu involving the number of loading docks available at the beginning of the week, the exhibition hall and fair details were such that this hometown gallery felt proud to be taking part in the extravaganza."

Berlanga continued, "Stephen Daiter Gallery did well, especially during the opening night and the following day. Sale prices ranged from $3,000 to $30,000. What surprised me most was the wide range of interest in the very different work we offered, from vintage Callahan and Kertesz to two artists who have recently joined the gallery--Ben Gest and Paul D'Amato. Local favorite Art Shay, whose strong documentary work filled thousands of pages of magazines and books over the last 60 years, caught several buyers' attention with his images--all vintage silver prints--of the post-war west side of Chicago. Two rare images utilizing a number of techniques by Paul Citroen were offered as a pair for $80,000."

Although making most of the gallery's sales in the first two days, Berlanga noted though that fellow dealer, Carl Hammer was "in fine spirits over his Sunday sales and a number of other associates had strong weekends. Our gallery looks forward to next year at the Mart."

Santa Monica gallery owner and AIPAD member Peter Fetterman told me, "Art Chicago is definitely a work in progress. It was probably the best organized, most highly marketed show I've ever attended. It had great energy and an enormous will to succeed. It was certainly well attended by the general public. Real collectors writing out real checks in abundance were somewhat thin on the ground. But that was to be expected in the first year of its reincarnation. As with any new venture it will need time to mature. Hopefully within two to three years it will be completely back on track."

Fetterman noted, "We sold well with Salgado's new "Genesis" series and also our great wall of Harry Callahan's. Chicago is certainly one of the world's great cities. Midwest people have such good manners and genuine interest. As an exhibitor it was very "user friendly". The VIP program was superbly organized. I enjoyed my free rides in the Courtesy Audis and my free tickets to great Chicago Theaters. An A plus for trying."

New York City gallery owner Edward Winkleman reported, "We did fairly well at Art Chicago, with sales that covered all our expenses and a little left over. We placed some work into a few excellent collections and expect a few follow-up sales as well. We did well with the work by Kim Rugg (newspapers with their images and text obsessively reorganized) at $4,000 each and the photography of Gulnara Kasmalieva and Muratbek Djumaliev at $2,500. The latter had a solo exhibition up at the Art Institute during the fair. What didn't sell were paintings priced at $3000, drawings priced at $1800 and some photographs priced at $900--meaning we sold our more expensive work."

Winkleman also writes a very intelligent and balanced blog (although some of those who leave comments on his blog are not as well balanced) on what he terms "art, politics, gossip and tough love." You can find it at: http://edwardwinkleman.blogspot.com .

David Judah of Annely Juda Fine Art, London, told me that he "thought that the show was good, in fact very much better than expected", and he thinks that it will get better every year. One piece of art that he was particularly struck by was the Gerhard Richter painting on the Galerie Hans Mayer booth.

This was a show to sell contemporary work at, which is what our own company, Contemporary Works/Vintage Works, did. Amsterdam-based artist Lisa Holden, whose mixed media (photography, paint, varnish, digital manipulation and performance art all in one) work was featured in the booth, was flown in to discuss her work with clients. Several major pieces by Holden flew off the walls, as well as some smaller pieces. Her work sells from about $3,000-20,000. So did work by Croatian photographer Stanko Abadzic, whose images had to be replaced several times on the walls. Other contemporary work by Charlie Schreiner (a great multiple exposure of downtown Chicago) and Dianne Blell also sold quickly.

Some vintage 20th-century classics also found owners, including images from Henri Cartier-Bresson, Max Waldman, Ray Metzker and Erwin Blumenfeld. Several clients expressed interest in other of Lisa Holden's pieces, Marcus Doyle's saturated night-time color photographs (starting at $2,500 and $4,000 for the two sizes) and Arthur Tress' wonderful large-scale prints (from $3,500-10,000). And the Irving Penn's, Man Ray's and Andre Kertesz's all had their admirers. While the show wasn't a blockbuster for us, it was a solid performance, and we hope to be back next year.

Elizabeth Russell of Shoshana Wayne Gallery of Santa Monica, CA described the experience at Art Chicago as "good". "No trends were noticed, but less video overall. There was good quality of art and the booths looked very good--well installed and good light. It was a very well organized fair."

The organization by the fair's management was something that most exhibitors commented on positively. This was a very customer-focused group. I must applaud the management team here myself. They kept their cool under sometimes tough circumstances and pulled off a smooth running event, especially when you considered that Art Chicago was only one of the many events that this group had pulled together under the ARTroplis banner, and that this was only their second year in charge of the event. There were also the Intuit Fair (of folk and outsider art) and the International Antiques Fair (with its special Paris Antiques Market, including even a French bistro) that took up the entire floor above Art Chicago, plus the performance tent, the Bridge Art Show and the Artist's Project spaces just next door to the Mart. Yes, as is typical of such events, there were a few small glitches, such as with the freight transport, etc., but I have no doubt this group will tweak all those small problem areas for next year.

This is clearly a show that has turned itself around and is on the move upwards. Crowds were strong every day, except perhaps for the last Monday. While the audience does need more expansion beyond the Midwest, the show itself looked clean, organized and well done. Next year's show will be even better as it moves up a few more floors and will feature higher walls that go up to 12 feet. This will be a boost for big contemporary work. The new permanent show space will also feature better lighting, polished concrete floors and completely enclosed and finished ceilings. The Mart staff was comparing the new digs to the Maastricht, Germany venue. While they may be comparing the venue to Maastricht, I think they have their eyes more on Art Basel Miami.

Next year's show dates have already been announced for April 25-29, 2008. If you are a serious art photography collector, this will be a must fair for your itinerary.
 

During the Art Chicago show on April 28th, Chris Kennedy, who heads up Merchandise Mart Properties (MMPI), owner of Art Chicago, made a series of announcements that extended the reach of this group into the art world. The announcements concerned "strategic partnerships" between the Armory Show (the International Fair of New Art), as well as Volta (a satellite show of Art Basel), and Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc. Those "partnerships" were expected to become full outright purchases, according to sources at those companies.

Under the terms of the agreement, the Armory Show staff, including Paul Morris, president, and Katelijne De Backer, director, will join the Merchandise Mart management team and continue to base their operations in New York City. The Armory Show 2007, one of the most important contemporary art fairs in the world, attracted 52,000 visitors this past February, and 150 international exhibiting galleries reported more than $85 million in sales.

"The Armory Show partnership with Merchandise Mart is an extraordinary way of celebrating the 10th anniversary of the fair in 2008. It allows us to further realize our dreams and the many possibilities we have imagined," said Katelijne De Backer, the Armory Show director.

"Merchandise Mart's infrastructure and its ability to handle back-of-the-house issues will free me and my team to focus on other aspects of the show, like dealer selection and presentation," said Paul Morris, a co-founder of the Armory Show. "This is an ideal situation which will allow us to better serve the international community of galleries that participate in the Armory Show. We now have the financial resources and the administrative support to do an even better job for our dealers and collectors."

Volta's staff is also expected to remain in place after the sale.

MMPI, a Chicago-based trade show and property management firm, produces more than 300 trade shows, market events and conferences annually. Included in its show portfolio is Art Chicago, the Merchandise Mart International Antiques Fair, the Artist Project, the One of a Kind Show and Sale® in Chicago and Toronto, as well as multiple design shows such as the NeoCon® World's Trade Fair, Interior Design Show Toronto, IIDEX/NeoCon® Canada and Design Vancouver, among others. MMPI also manages The Merchandise Mart and 350 West Mart Center in Chicago; Market Square, the suites at Market Square, Hamilton Market, Plaza Suites, Furniture Plaza and the National Furniture Mart in High Point, N.C.; the Architects & Designers Building and 7 2 New York in New York; the Boston Design Center in Boston; the L.A. Mart in Los Angeles; and the Washington Design Center and Federal Center Southwest in Washington D.C.
 

Newsletter readers can now see a special Spring Clearance Sale on I Photo Central brought to you by all five of the website's photography dealers. These items are available at special sale prices (from 20 to over 70% off the regular list price) for just one month, from now until May 31st. Many of the items' regular list prices were reduced earlier, so the actual net reductions may be well over 30% to 80% in many instances. These are all final prices, so no other discounts apply. Shipping/insurance may also be added. Once the sale is over, the items revert to their normal prices.

There are some great deals, so check them out soon at: http://www.iphotocentral.com/sale/sale.php .

If you want to do further sorts on the sale list, you can go to the Search Images page at http://www.iphotocentral.com/search/search.php and put MaySale1 into the key word field. Then you can also use the other search fields, such as price range, country, date range, etc. When you have all your choices made, simply hit the Search button (not the Show All Images button). When you put in the key word, you must have the capital letters in properly and no space between the words or the number "1". Also make sure you do not have any extra space after the key word. This way if you are bargain hunting, you can put in a range from $1 to $500, or if you want to focus on the top end, just put in a range from $1000 (or $5000) to No Limit.

Here is a sampling of some of the top work on sale:
--Alfred Eisenstaedt, V-J Day Times Square, NY 1945. This was a gift from Eisenstaedt to the current owner. Sale price: $12,000.
--A quarter-plate daguerreotype of several stores in Jersey City, NJ. Sale price: $15,000.
--A vintage print of one of Berenice Abbott's most well-known images (the Snuff Shop). Sale price: $12,500.
--A vintage color print of Marilyn Monroe by Richard Avedon. Sale price: $9,000. And many more key images and lesser priced images are also on sale.

To help introduce a new feature on the website, a number of photography dealers on I Photo Central are also running a special Book Sale offer on most of the new books we have posted up on line at a 20% discount price. You will also save shipping costs if you order $250 or more per dealer.

Now on the site there are some of the rarest and most sought-after books and portfolios, including Henri Cartier-Bresson's magnus opus "The Decisive Moment"; dozens of signed books from leading photographers (such Eggleston, Kertesz, Friedlander, Sudek, Avedon, Lyon, Teske, Clark, Sturges, Weston, Bernhard, Davidson, Mapplethorpe, Witkin, Shibata, Siskind, Warhol, Michals, Doyle, Levinson, Fee, Fuss, Webb and others); and some of the hardest to find incunabula from the earliest days of photography, for instance, the collected papers presented at the Academy of Sciences in Paris in 1839 announcing the invention of photography, including the famous report by Arrago, a 19th-century reproduction of the correspondence between Daguerre and Niepce, and a Rare 1851 First Volume of the influential Journal La Lumiere--only about a dozen copies exist, most in French public institutions. Also included are photo-illustrated books and portfolios, such as Peter Henry Emerson's "The Compleat Angler" and "Wild Life on a Tidal Water", plus many modern portfolios and books with prints. There is also a Portfolio of Sixteen Photographs by Alvin Langdon Coburn, 1962 with an introduction by Nancy Newhall on sale for $280 and "Lee Friedlander Photographs", including two original prints by Friedlander, which consistently goes at auction for $16,000 and is sale priced at $12,800.

Of course, there are also many other very low priced photography books listed on the site that can fill in your library or make great presents. And many more books will be added to the list over the next months (and beyond), so keep checking back.

The Book Sale can also be found at: http://www.iphotocentral.com/sale/sale.php .

While the books can be searched on the regular Search pages with the drop-down menu on media (just select "books"), we expect to soon have an entirely separate photography bookstore--the first such multi-dealer version on the web.

I encourage bookstores with a photography orientation to contact me at 1-215-822-5662 for details on how to join I Photo Central and put inventory into this new internet resource. And I encourage our newsletter readers to go and see the many rare photography books currently on sale on the site. Many are rare first edition and signed copies. Others will make great additions to any research library.
 

Contemporary Works, an I Photo Central dealer, has announced that it will increase some of the prices for three of its European photographers on June 15th. These price increases are necessitated by increases in shipping costs from Europe and by the decline in the dollar versus euro and pound sterling. We recently featured all of these artists at Photo LA, the New York AIPAD Photography Show and Art Chicago.

Stanko Abadžic's black and white photographs will go up $150 each (most are currently at $750-850). His larger scale images will go up $250 each. Made in editions of 25 and three respectively, these beautiful images are reminiscent of a cross between Andre Kertesz's Hungarian period and Henri Cartier-Bresson's Decisive Moment images. You can see his work at http://www.contemporaryworks.net/artists/artist_imgs.php/1/4783 . His new book, "Stanko Abadžic" is also now available from Contemporary Works and John Cleary Gallery in signed copies. Any image from the book can also be ordered. Abadžic's work was recently featured in several magazines, including the March 2007 issue of "Black & White" magazine and the February/March 2007 issue of Schwarzweiss 56 das Magazin fur Fotografie, where his work was the cover feature. A show of his work is currently running through May 26th at the John Cleary Gallery on 2635 Colquitt in Houston, TX (phone: 1-713-524-5070).

Beginning June 15th, Marcus Doyle's stunning and highly saturating color landscapes will now start at $2,500 (presently $2,000) for his 20 x 24 inch prints and $4,000 (presently $3,200) for his 30 x 40 inch chromogenic prints (in editions of only 14 and seven respectively). As writer Matt Damsker notes in his preface to Doyle's book, "Marcus Doyle: Night Vision, Intimacies of an Unblinking Eye", "Doyle's large-format approach, with saturated colors that result from exposures as long as three hours, turns his unstaged tableaux into visions of exalted expectancy amidst man's tendency to trivialize." You can see examples of Doyle's work at: http://www.contemporaryworks.net/artists/artist_imgs.php/1/3727 . His book is also available in a softbound and in a limited edition hardbound (with print) from Contemporary Works. Doyle's work was recently featured in several magazines, including the November 2006 issue of "Focus" magazine.

Finally, Lisa Holden's contemporary work will also increase in price on June 15th. Her unique painted and varnished photography work will go up individually, but about 20-25% for each piece. Her larger Diasec mounted color chromogenic pieces (currently about $5,000-7,000) will go up approximately 10% additional (increasing about $500-700 each). Her 30 x 40 inch pieces (edition of eight) will remain for the time being at the current opening $3,000 price, but this price is expected to go up later this year. You can find Holden's work at: http://www.contemporaryworks.net/artists/artist_imgs.php/1/4205 . Her color catalogue is available in signed copies from Contemporary Works. Lisa Holden will be featured in the next issue of "Eyemazing", the European magazine for contemporary art photography, and in upcoming issues of "Camera Arts" and "New York Arts" magazine. You can see the blog for New York Arts here: http://www.nyartsmagazine.com/blog/ .

You may order prints from each of these artists by calling Contemporary Works at 1-215-822-5662. If you order prints before June 15th, you will be able to buy at the current prices before the increases go into effect.
 

By Matt Damsker

THAMES & HUDSON PHOTOFILE SERIES: HENRI-CARTIER BRESSON,
HELMUT NEWTON, MAN RAY, SEBASTIAO SALGADO.
Robert Delpire, Managing Editor of the series. Each paperback volume contains approximately 60 photographs, most in duotone. Price: $15.95. Published by Thames & Hudson, 500 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10110. Information: http://www.thamesandhudson.com .

Elegantly compact, this Photofile series of classic modern photography is the original English-language edition of the Photo Poche collection from the Centre National de la Photographie in Paris. Given such a pedigree, it's no surprise that many of the most admired works of these great artists are here, beautifully reproduced in duotone and neatly bound with helpful essays. Ideal for students or casual photo buffs, these small troves are also wonderfully affordable at only $15.95.

As for their collective journey, the Photofile series moves from the surrealism and experimental modernism of Man Ray in the 1920s to the latter-day humanism of Sebastiao Salgado, with his images of famine and his great, third-world Workers project. In between these 20th-century polarities, the photo-journalistic supremacy of Henri Cartier-Bresson and the fetishistic fashion images of Helmut Newton round out the modern era. For collectors, of course, there may not be very much in the way of revelation here: Man Ray's solarizations, his nudes, or his portraits of artists from Duchamp to Ernst to Giacometti, Antonin Artaud and Tristan Tzara, are familiar touchstones, as are Cartier-Bresson's shots of Matisse with his dove, gray primal landscapes, countless street moments across the world, and so on.

Still, one never tires of these black-and-white treasures, and inevitably, there are discoveries that one had not been aware of--such as a Cartier-Bresson shot of entangled lovers in Mexico (1934) that is gritty in its eroticism. And the searing work of Salgado demands that attention be paid: while the Western world was awash in the prosperity of the 1980s and '90s, this Brazilian, trained as an economist, focused an unblinking eye on starvation in the remote deserts of Ethiopia, the Sudan, Mali, on the chaos of Mid-East warfare in Kuwait, and on the brutal conditions faced by Brazilian miners and Cambodian landmine victims. Salgado finds photographic beauty--or, more accurately, graphic drama--in his urgent subject matter, and his exposures are astonishingly detailed, most of them in burnished depths of sun and shadow that pit his frail humanity against unforgiving landscapes. Indeed, his master image of Brazil's Serra Pelada coal mine achieves a truly Biblical dimension: seen from a high angle, the ant-like army of burden-shouldering men, ladders and shafts suggest what it must have been like to build the Great Pyramids.

By comparison, Helmut Newtown's photographs of high-fashion indolence, spike-heeled nudity, and kinky, bondage-flavored scenarios are very much a decadent record of the 1970s, when taboos were falling away and fashion photography took on a more liberated narrative quality. Newton, as Karl Lagerfeld's essay asserts, is obsessed with "Nordfleisch"--Northern flesh, in all its Nordic whiteness--and if that links him in some crypto-Fascist way to Aryan ideals of womanhood, he also evokes the decadence of Weimar Germany and Berlin cabaret, especially in his androgynous images of models mannishly outfitted. At the end of the day, however, Newton wasn't about racial types or cultural deconstruction; he loved form, the female form, mainly, and context--often bizarre, somewhat shocking, touched with humor--as a means of activating form in a still photograph. Like those of all the photographers in this series, his pictures seem only to be getting better as they age.

MARCEL MARIEN: NE FAITES PAS ATTENTION A LA PHOTOGRAPHIE.
Catalogue accompanying the recent exhibition of the same name at France LeJeune Fine Art, Battelse steenweg 67, 2800 Mechelen, Belgium. 63 pages; approximately 40 black-and-white plates; ISBN-10 No. 90-9021382-1. Available for $25 from Vintage Works, Ltd. http://www.vintageworks.net ; email info@vintageworks.net ; phone 1-215-822-5662 and France Lejeune Fine Art http://www.Francelejeune.com ; email: info@Francelejeune.com .

One of surrealism's standard bearers, the Belgian art scholar and provocateur Marcel Marien (1920-1993) produced most of his photographic work, which is very rarely seen, between 1983 and his death a decade later, and this catalogue affords a broad glimpse of a playful, inelegant style that evokes the odd objectifications of such mentoring figures as Magritte and Man Ray. Marien's Man Ray-esque nude images dominated his photographic oeuvre, in fact, as he indulged a series of photographic jokes--such as a "bearded" Mona Lisa glimpsed in relation to a nude model's unshaven pudendum, or a miniature model of the Leaning Tower of Pisa held from a female crotch as if it were a penis.

These and other such mockeries of the female form, the voyeuristic gaze and the sanctity of photo-portraiture are intentionally flat and seem amateurish, but the more one looks at them, the more evident it becomes that Marien was very much in control of his medium and his point of view. On one hand, he sought to pay homage to his surrealist inspirations, while on the other, he, as a true Dadaist, was intent on painting a childlike moustache on the fine-art tradition, and he did so with a mixture of deadpan bravado and disarming glee.

It is not surprising to learn, as this catalogue tells us, that Marien's long friendship with Magritte resulted not only in the first important monograph on the great surrealist painter (published by Marien in 1943) but also the end of the friendship (and some subsequent litigation) when Marien published a pamphlet purportedly written by Magritte and announcing absurd price reductions of the master's work.

Marien did produce at least one great photograph in his youthful surrealist heyday: 1945's "De Sade a Lenine," in which a nude slices a loaf of bread with a knife that precariously edges her left nipple. The evocative photo blends political/sexual subtext with sheer compositional panache--and is a fine legacy of Marien's mischief and mastery.


BOURBON STREET--NEW ORLEANS 1955. PHOTOGRAPHS BY GEORGE S. ZIMBEL.
Published by les editions du passage, 2006; hardcover, 96 pages, approximately 40 black-and-white plates; $60.00. ISBN No. 2-922892-20-4. Information: info@editionsdupassage.com; phone: 1-514-273-1687.

This evocative look at New Orleans' French Quarter in its Post-World War II heyday captures a dark, feisty world of girlie shows, jazz, convivial coffees at the Café du Monde, as well as the loneliness of solitary figures at a bar. George Zimbel's career as an American photojournalist was thriving--he created the iconic image of Marilyn Monroe with her skirt being raised around her by the air from a subway grate in New York, along with photos of the Kennedys--when he connected with New Orleans' night rhythms, and the resulting trove of images explores time, place and people vividly and compassionately.

Zimbel's photo sequence of the popular Cuban dancer Chelo Alonso, who found fame briefly as a featured player in Hollywood films, wonderfully marks the difference between striptease and genuine exotic dancing, while Zimbel's photos of less exotic strippers conveys the sheer exuberance of Bourbon Street burlesque.

Then there are the low-lit jazz singers and bands that sweat it out on small stages, the knots of sailors pooling their cash to enter a nightclub, male gawkers at the window of a lingerie store, and the hulking nighthawk profile of the actual streetcar named Desire. Engagingly art-directed, with its blow-ups of key photographs in darkroom red, and with descriptive passages in English, French, Spanish, and Japanese, this is certainly an above-average coffee table tome. And one dollar from each book sold is to be donated to charitable organizations for the post-Katrina reconstruction of New Orleans.


Matt Damsker is an author and critic, who has written about photography and the arts for the Los Angeles Times, Hartford Courant, Philadelphia Bulletin, Rolling Stone magazine and other publications. His book, "Rock Voices", was published in 1981 by St. Martin's Press. His essay in the book, "Marcus Doyle: Night Vision" was published this past November.

(Book publishers, authors and photography galleries/dealers may send review copies to us at: I Photo Central, 258 Inverness Circle, Chalfont, PA 18914. We do not guarantee that we will review all books or catalogues that we receive.)